Dragon Knight Saga (Divinity 2: Ego Draconis +expansion)

The Game Room
1

Thought I take a moment to mention this. It’s a solid game and pretty fun, as the package with the expansion pack was just released for 40 bucks on Steam.

It’s pretty good. It plays like a weird cross between Diablo and Gothic. There’s a lot of open-world exploration, though the game isn’t that long. It’s pretty, the models are nice, and the combat is pretty hectic and exciting at times. The role-playig isn’t very deep, but it’s fun and you do have some significant quest choices. There’s also the Mind-Reading mechanic, which is actually quite interesting but one of those things you’re gonna want to read a strategy guide to use properly. Otherwise, you’ll waste a bunch of experience and probably miss half the good bits anyway. This is a tough game to get into, because unlike a Bioware or Obsidian RPG, the results of your choices are often rather obscure. I will say that acting nobely is usually a better choice in the long run, but it can be a bit vague about HOW you can best benefit from your options.

The short verison is that you star as a Dragon Slayer. The mighty Divine, whom I believe was your character if you played Divine Divinity, has been killed by his evil son, Damien. This was something pretty much everybody saw coming, as Damien is apparently a mighty evil reincarnated, or something. Damien was driven off, but some order dedicated to the Divine saw that he was murdered not by Damien, but by a Dragon Knight. So they’re off to smite all the Dragons and Dragon Knights left. You are a young recruit, trained since you were a child, and are gifted with the Dragon Memories about five second into the plot. not that it matters much because it seems like this is entirely pointless and irrelevant - this is an odd plot hole and could easily have been explained.* Ah well, no time to waste: the last Dragon Knight has been spotted and it’s time to kill the bastard!

Well, let’s just say things get more complicated for you quickly. Given that the game is called the Dragon Knight saga, and the first part is called Ego Draconis… I don’t think it’s a spoiler to note that you become one quick enough and the fate of the world is shoved onto your shoulders.
*Note from above:

[spoiler]My pet explanation is that the Dragon Memories are WHY your character was able to infused with the Dragon Essence. You had all the knowledge of the Dragon Memories, but hadn’t yet been trained to completely guard your mind and will, so she dumped everything she had into you.

I do like that they show the Dragon Knights were a somewhat ambiguous bunch. Tallana likes it when you do good deeds, though she cautions against actions which seem nice but might be dangerous. And she gets some. It’s also interesting to see how the game shows that Dragon Knights were powerful, but not immune to temptation. And some of the NPC’s who help you are utter bastards. Lovis, Island, Joneleth and Igor, - I’m looking at you, buddies.[/spoiler]

2

I played the first Divine Divinity, and I really love the game - the music, the exploration, questing and the gameplay. However Beyond Divinity was a letdown.

Divinity 2 was a must-play for me, but was hoping to get it in the bargain bin. Now there’s a good reason for me to try it out…

3

Huh. Guess this just isn’t a popular series. Ah well.

4

Thanks for the review. I’ve been pondering Steam purchases, and I’ll put this one on my list.

5

I’ve played for almost 13 hours according to Steam and I’m really liking it. I should be close to becoming a dragon and getting the Battle Tower I think. From what I’ve seen so far, this game can easily compete with RPG’s from Bioware/Obsidian/Bethesda (and The Witcher). I haven’t played Ego Draconis and from what I’ve heard the ending was the weakest point of the game both qua gameplay and story, but I believe they redesigned some of the final levels and the included expansion should end the story properly. Divine Divinity’s ending sucked too, so I hope they got it right in this version.

6

You get the Drgaon form at the end of Sentinel Island.

I love the dialogue in this game. For a world with such a… disturbingly flagrant style of magic and technology (good lord, are these people tacky!) the dialogue is hilariously appropriate. You never break the fourth wall, but you can toss off some truly insane one-liners. This game doesn’t take itself too seriously. And if you’re like me, you insult your opponents at every turn.

I think they redesigned the experience as well as the rest fo the game for the Dragon Knight saga. I think most people ended up around 31-32 in the original, but I hit 31 now, even after they removed some xp cheats, and still have three flying fortresses and the final areas to conquer, and all the structure-enemies.

Oh, the flying fortresses are whole goddamn islands ripped up and packed with enemies. They are… hard. In the same way that diamond is slightly tough.

Hint: Dual Wielding. Just, Dual-Wielding. It’s not that it’s all that on its own, but the abilities scale well and you get all the enchants on both weapons. So you can stack up +100 magic damage, +100 physical damage… and then do it all over again. And you might need to in this game.

7

I’m exited about it - I bought this and Gothic 4 for the refund I got from Steam for my pre-ordered Black Ops copy. It’s downloading now. Dual wield tip duly noted! :slight_smile:

8

Got the game after reading this thread, and enjoying it a lot! After Fallout NW and Dragon Age its nice to finally get my hands on an RPG that allows me to play a lawful good character without forcing any sadistic choices on me. I can’t turn into a dragon yet, but just running around blasting people with my fireballs and magic missiles is a lot of fun. Does anyone know how I can help Frolo with his gambling debts so he doesn’t have to loose his house?

9

Ah, I loved Divine Divinity and even the buggy mess that was Beyond Divinity. Reminded me a bit of a lightweight Ultima game. I’ll have to check this one out.

nitpick question: Why is this the 2nd one? What was Beyond Divinity considered? I hadn’t even more than glanced at this game because I assumed it wasn’t connected to Divine Divinity since there had already been a 2nd one of those.

10

It’s definitely an action RPG, and there’s a lot of focus on killing things a la Diablo. But it’s fun and engaging. Some of the later enemies are mean, and will stunlock you if you try to fight too many at once.

No idea. I thought it was a quasi-expansion pack, so make of that what you will.

11

I beat this game a few months ago. It has some okay features but the problem is you quickly become way more powerful than most enemies, and most fights after the first area are much too easy. The enemies are fixed in number and level - none of them respawn. People bitch about monster levels scaling to the players in games, if you’re one of those people you might like this. I just found the last 2/3 of the game to be a major slog since it felt like my character was so much more powerful than the monsters.

The dragon bits are ok, but not great IMO. Yeah it’s cool flying around, but there are a lot of “anti-dragon zones” which must be deactivated by using a switch on foot or by destroying a specific tower as a dragon. Couple this with the fact that the game takes place in narrow little canyon like areas and it almost feels like one of the old arcade rail-shooters at times. The dungeon areas are nice but small.

If the difficulty were tweaked and the outdoor areas a little more open rather than claustrophobic little corridors it would be a decent game. I got so bored with it after the second half that it was a struggle to finish. I wouldn’t recommend this game unless it’s really cheap and you’re really bored.

12

This is the big reason to play the Dragon Knight Saga than jsut Ego Draconis. They completely swapped the enemies and difficulty as also got rid of almost all the Anti-Dragon Zones.

13

That and the fact that the game plus expansion is currently 10 bucks cheaper on steam than the game alone.